WTI Opens Well Below $58; Eleven Wells Come Off The Confidential List Today -- January 16, 2020

New record: Texas oil and gas industry paid $16.3 billion in taxes and state royalties in 2019, most in Texas history.

Canada: severe winter cold snap shutting down oil operations ("heavy oil" becomes too viscous to move) and refiners have been disrupted due to the cold. Western Canadian Select (WCS) has fallen to $35.33 earlier this week from $40.77 less than two weeks earlier. Bloomberg, behind a paywall, reposted by oilprice. 

Active rigs:

$57.82	1/16/2020	01/16/2019	01/16/2018	01/16/2017	01/16/2016
Active Rigs	52	68	57	36	49

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Thursday, January 16, 2020: 52 for the month; 52 for the quarter; 52 for the year:

• 36398, SI/NC, Rimrock, Two Shields Butte 4-24-12-4H3U, Mandaree, no production data,
• 35905, 2,818, CLR, Honolulu 5-15H, Indian Hill, t7/19; cum 117K 11/19; 34K month;
• 35825, 602, CRL, Gjorven 7-21H1, Brooklyn, t9/19; cum 58K 11/19; 25K month;
• 35688, SI/NC, BR, Tailgunner 1C MBH, North Fork, no production data,
• 35504, 1,996, CLR, Weisz 6-11H, Pleasant Valley, t11/19; cum 36K 11/19; 35K month;
• 34827, drl, Hess, HA-Nelson A-152-95-3427H-8, Hawkeye

Wednesday, January 15, 2020: 46 for the month; 46 for the quarter; 46 for the year:

• 36399, SI/NC, Rimrock, Two Shields Butte 4-24-12-4H3, Mandaree, no production data,
• 35995, 1,659, Whiting, Martell 34-36-2H, Glass Bluff, t7/19; cum 59K 11/19; 19K month;
• 35779, 1,549, Hess, EN-Farhart-156-93-0409H-7, Baskin, t7/19; cum 98K 11/19; 23K month;
• 35689, SI/NC, BR, Tailgunner 1D TFH, North Fork, no production data,
• 34828, drl, Hess, HA-Nelson A-152-95-3427H-7,Hawkeye,

RBN Energy: Tallgrass/Rockies Express recontracting efforts for Rockies gas flows.

Tallgrass Energy’s Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) has been through a lot in its 10-plus years of operation. Since its first eastbound-only segments started moving natural gas out of the Rockies in 2008, flows on the pipeline have evolved due to market events, primarily the onset of the Shale Revolution, which has resulted in a surge of gas supplies in the Eastern U.S. and increasing gas-on-gas competition across North America. Rising to the challenge, REX has undergone a number of transformations to adapt to the shifting gas flow patterns and price relationships, including reversing flows on the eastern zone of the pipe to move gas west from Ohio. In 2019, REX was again put to the test, this time on the western end of the pipe, where the bulk of its legacy long-term contracts for eastbound flows out of the Rockies expired, with the last of them rolling off on November 11, 2019. Some of that has since been recontracted, and the in-service of the REX Cheyenne Hub Enhancement and Cheyenne Connector projects could further shore up REX mainline flows. Today, we begin a short series providing an update on REX’s eastbound gas flows and contract changes.

You could say REX is the Madonna of gas pipelines. The Queen of Pop’s four-decades-long (and still going) career has been attributed to her habit of constantly reinventing herself. Similarly, REX’s long-term success has depended on its ability to morph, particularly given the rapid-fire changes that have buffeted the gas market over the past decade, all driven by the dramatic effect the Shale Revolution has had on the geographic distribution — and sheer volume — of gas supply across the Lower 48. The large-diameter, long-haul pipeline is now a robust bidirectional cross-country system that behaves like a massive header system for interregional flows. But it didn’t start out that way.

REX began as a much-needed outlet for surplus Rockies gas supply, initially only extending east to delivery points in the Midcontinent and terminating at the Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line (PEPL) interconnect in northeastern Missouri.

But by November 2009, the easternmost section was completed, allowing REX to flow as much as 1.8 Bcf/d all the way east to Clarington, OH, for further delivery into the Northeast’s premium consuming markets along the Atlantic seaboard. This eastern section of REX — or Zone 3 — added more than 15 interconnects with other interstate pipelines running generally perpendicular to REX and feeding Midwestern and Eastern markets plus a number of local utilities in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

This all made sense at a time when Rockies natural gas producers were looking to sell into the Eastern U.S., and when the Northeast region — the biggest heating demand region in the U.S., then and now — had little local supply of its own to help balance its consumption. As a result, Rockies producers quickly filled REX to near its eastbound capacity of about 1.8 Bcf/d by April 2010, and sustained that level for over a year. But that plateau didn’t hold up for long.

Not even a year-and-a-half later, by late 2011, west-to-east gas flows were facing pushback at REX’s eastern terminus from the emerging Marcellus Shale. REX still flowed net eastbound from the Rockies, but the deliveries shifted back to interconnects in the Midcontinent and Midwest, as Appalachian gas increasingly took over serving Northeast demand. Eastbound flows out of the Rockies also became more seasonal and declined as Rockies production growth slowed, taking a back seat to shale drilling elsewhere, and the region no longer had the kind of surplus gas and severe pipeline takeaway constraints it had faced just a few years earlier. Flows ramped up during the summer when Rockies demand was lower, and slowed during the winter, when most gas was needed to heat homes and businesses locally or in the Pacific Northwest.

Much, much more at the link.